Selecting input and output devices to be used in virtual walkthroughs is an important issue as it may have significant impact in usability and comfort. This paper presents a user study meant to compare the usability of two input devices used for walkthroughs in a virtual environment with a Head-Mounted Display. User performance, satisfaction, ease of use and comfort, were compared with two different input devices: a two button mouse and a joystick from a gamepad. Participants also used a desktop to perform the same tasks in order to assess if the participant groups had similar profiles. The results obtained by 45 participants suggest that both input devices have a comparable usability in the used conditions and show that participants generally performed better with the desktop; a discussion of possible causes is presented.

Date Published: 28 February 2014
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9012, The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality 2014, 90120M (28 February 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2036486

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9012:
The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality 2014
Margaret Dolinsky; Ian E. McDowall, Editor(s)